


A tethered mind freed from the lies

by savvyliterate



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Clara gets to punch the Doctor with good reason, Danny isn't discarded because the plot doesn't know how to handle him, F/M, In which the Ponds are at Trenzalore, Series 7 and 8 AU, and Romana just had to make an appearance because she is a badass.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7571461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savvyliterate/pseuds/savvyliterate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love wasn't an emotion. Marriage just wasn't a bunch of words. They were promises. They had made those promises atop a pyramid at every point in history and sealed them in a simple garden. They would follow each other to the ends of the universe. They would save each other, no matter the cost. There was simply no other choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks and love to Sarah and Beverly for talking me through the two major outlines of this story over the past year and a half (and then that got scuttled during the actual writing and we're on the third one now) and enabling it. 
> 
> This fic is for all of those who wanted a more coherent take on the Trenzalore mess and what happened after. This starts at the beginning of series 7 and pretty much just redoes everything.

There were Daleks _everywhere_.

There weren’t glittering pepper pots gliding down the street of the idyllic 19th century Austrian village where Professor River Song had discreetly led an expedition of archaeology students from the 51st century. But they were still there. River could sense it.

It had started with a premonition, one so strong that it had woke River from a late afternoon nap with sweat rolling down her back and her stomach so twisted that she nearly retched into the washbasin. She did not allow herself to get worked up into histrionics because there was simply no point. Her genes, combined with decades of training and near-torture at the hands of the Church, had prepared for her anything. Even the Daleks themselves didn’t faze her. They feared her, and she cheerfully dispatched them with no shred of remorse - something that her husband couldn’t even claim. Taking out Daleks was simple, and she wouldn’t even chip her nail polish in the process. But something about it felt different this time.

So she had slipped from her bed and hastily arranged for her students to return to the 51st century without her, to the care of the professor who had guided her through her Ph.D work. _Daleks_ , River texted Professor Candy using her altered mobile. _Students coming back immediately. I’ll handle it._

The answering text came roughly ten seconds after the last protesting student had their vortex manipulator activated. _All students accounted for. Do take care. Finding your replacement would be dreadfully tedious._

River smirked. _Darling, when have I not taken care?_

_I have known you for 20 years, Professor Song. You do not want to hear my answer._

River laughed, despite the greasy knot that refused to dislodge itself from her stomach. She sent a kiss emoji back to Professor Candy and quickly shed the period clothing she had donned to work alongside her students. Jodhpurs, a tunic and blouse, her new favorite leather jacket over all that. Her clothing was dark, and her curls tumbled over her shoulders as she hitched on her gun belt, tucked her diary in the pocket, strapped on her vortex manipulator, and checked her guns. She fluffed her curls, picked out jewelry, and applied lipstick, going for hallucinogenic. One should at least dress well when they were planning to murder Daleks.

Swirling an oversize cloak over her shoulders, she stepped into the snowy night and pulled up the hood. Unlike her husband, who didn’t know period-appropriate behavior if it clobbered him upside the head, she preferred not to give away her cover unless she absolutely had to. There was a time and a place for theatrics, and there was a time for stealth.

As the sun set and small boys went around lighting the street lamps, River moved among the crowd hastening to finish their marketing before it was fully dark. She nodded to those who acknowledged her and counted under her breath as she passed by people. She didn’t bother to look over her shoulder as she heard the increasing crunch of boots upon snow behind her. Her pulse quickened as she reached the edge of town and her hand swept under her cloak to rest on the butt of her gun. In the chilly winter air, her breath made small puffs of fog.

At her back, the townspeople who gathered didn’t breathe at all.

There were approximately 150 in the small town. It was little to hope that some had been spared. But at least she had gotten her students out. Professor Candy would have made sure they weren’t infected, and River had warded the house they rented before they even arrived. _Still_. A pang of pity, brief and sharp, shot through her before she shoved it to the back of her mind. She couldn’t allow herself to grieve for what was. The entire town was dead, and there was nothing she could do to change it. But she could at least give those who had lost their lives some dignity. She mentally assessed her weaponry and decided on a course of action.

Smiling pleasantly, she whirled around and headed back toward the center of town. A small statue of Jesus Christ stood in the middle of a carefully tended park, and it was here she headed. She stopped before the statue of Christ. The sculptor, whoever it was, was decent enough. Definitely influenced by Johann Krauss, though she was certain it wasn’t the genuine article. This piece was just a few decades old, and it wouldn’t be a huge historic loss in the overall grand scheme of things.

“I’m not one for the Church,” River said conversationally. “Never really been all that spiritual. I find it fascinating from a historical sense, but I’ve never been into gods or religion. I suppose you could say my faith lies in a madman with a box. But you lot know that, don’t you?”

The town vicar emerged from the crowd. Close-cropped greying blond hair made him look distinguished, and he had blushed every time he ran into River in their previous encounters. She felt another stab of pity.

“You know,” she told him, “you really didn’t have to kill off the entire village to get my attention. I do respond to dinner invitations.”

“They said they would spare us,” the vicar said. “They said they would let our children live if we brought them the heretic River Song.”

“But they’re not alive, are they?” River said.

“They are all lost to us because of your wickedness. Because of your inability to accept Jesus Christ into your life. They are messengers from Satan, here to punish us for allowing you to walk among us. Whore,” he spat.

River raised an eyebrow. “Only one of those things you’ve said is true, Vicar. They _are_ the devils themselves. And now they’ve infected all of you just to get my attention.” She flipped back the hood to let her curls spill free. “Come now. You’ve gone to all this effort, now tell me what you want.”

The vicar didn’t say anything for a moment. Then his forehead split open, a Dalek eyestalk slowly emerging as a gun sprouted from his right palm. He tossed his head back briefly, as if caught in a moment of ecstasy, then refocused on River. Any humanity left in his eyes were gone, replaced by the jittery light that she associated with Daleks.

“We will acquire River Song,” the vicar intoned in a mechanical Dalek voice.

She beamed at him. “I do apologize. But being kidnapped by Daleks is not on my agenda today. Shall we rebook? I believe I an an opening some time after absolutely never. Your people can contact my people.”

River dodged the answering gun shot just in time, diving behind the statue as the other townspeople began mutating into Daleks. She had ten seconds, more likely seven, but it was enough. She took off one of the dangling pearl earrings she wore and yanked the hook out. The three pearls that made up the bulk of the earring fell into her palm. Subatomic grenades. Very useful for a girl to have on hand when she needed to incinerate several dozen Daleks. Ducking another shot, she pitched one pearl to the left, one to the right, and the last one straight over the vicar’s head.

“Give my love to the Dalek Supreme!” River said with a cheerful wave. She blew a kiss at them and hit the activation button on her vortex manipulator just as the pearls began to explode. It caught her just off balance as she disappeared into the vortex, and seconds later she landed in an inelegant heap on a carefully tended lawn. She wheezed out a breath, grateful that she didn’t accidentally splinch in the process. J.K. Rowling hadn’t pulled that one entirely from her imagination. It would have been supremely embarrassing to go off in search of a missing foot. River scowled as she smelled singed hair in addition to the electric scent of the vortex.

“Lovely,” she grunted, pulling a curl in front of her eyes. “So much for never-fail time-travel anti-frizz hair treatment. I want my money back.”

River rolled to her feet and pulled off the now-ruined cloak. She tossed it over the wrought-iron chair next to her and shook her hair back. A quick glance at her manipulator confirmed she had landed when and where she intended. She brushed the grass off her jodhpurs and made her way into the terraced home in front of her.

“Amy!” she called as she walked into the kitchen. “Hope you don’t mind I dropped in. Small mess with some Daleks, nothing I couldn’t handle. Let’s grab some Thai for dinner, I’m starved.” She glanced around a bit as she walked through the kitchen into the lounge and dining area. “Amy? Rory?” River glanced at the clock and frowned. They wouldn’t be at work, not this late in the afternoon.

River slowly turned in a circle. The more she looked at her parents’ home, the more it didn’t seem quite right. A tea mug had spilled on its side, its contents long dried into tan stains on the table and across the pages of an open book. That greasy knot of unease was back, or maybe it had never gone away. River headed back into the kitchen and checked the fridge. A quick look at the dairy cartons showed that everything was at least a month expired.

“Rory? Amy? You back?”

She recognized the familiar shuffling before the back door eased open, and Brian Williams walked into the kitchen. His eyes lit up at the sight of her, and she was equally relieved to find that whatever was going on, her grandfather was OK.

“River!” He held out his arms for a hug, and she gratefully fell into them. “My dear, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Just dropped by for a bit, Grandad,” she said, kissing his forehead. “Where’s Mum and Dad?”

“I reckoned the Doctor whisked them away for a bit,” Brian repliec. “That was three weeks ago. I’ve been watering the plants. Planned to at least clean out the fridge for them.” He showed River the large trash bag he’d brought with him. “You never know with those three. They could be gone overnight, or they could be gone a month. Really hope it’s not the latter. The hospital’s quite put off with Rory and told me they wouldn’t renew his contract.”

“I’m sure I can work something out,” River reassured him. She had no qualms about flashing about a bit of psychic paper to ensure that her father remained employed. Not that they needed the money thanks to the Doctor, but Rory loved to work. Besides, it wasn’t either his nor Amy’s fault that the Doctor couldn’t keep their timelines straight.

Brian opened the fridge, and together they discarded science projects in process and cleaned dishes. As they worked, River told him a severely edited version of her trip to Austria while he bragged about his golf game.

In the two years the Doctor had avoided the Ponds while trying to remain hidden from the universe, Amy and Rory used the time to gradually integrate their only child into their non-Doctor lives. The house the Doctor had secured for them was in London, near where Brian had moved after divorcing Rory’s mother. He had been the first to learn of their Doctor lives and readily accepted the fact that his only grandchild was much, much older than he was. Amy’s parents were a work in progress, and Rory’s mother had slammed the door in his face. It was a bit rough around the edges, but at least they could convene for family dinners as long as the Doctor wasn’t around.

Though the first family dinner the Doctor had attended after he decided to abandon his self-flagellation tour remained one of River’s favorite memories.

Task complete, and with no food in the house, River and Brian wandered to a nearby pub for dinner and a lengthier chat. She picked at her food and hoped he didn’t notice. But of course, he had. But Brian being Brian, he merely gave her a sympathetic look and didn’t press. She insisted on walking him home after the meal, and she found herself giving him just a slightly longer hug than usual.

“You all right?” Brian asked softly.

“Just a bit off,” she acknowledged. “I’m just going to have a kip at Amy and Rory’s. I’ll drop in soon.” She kissed his cheek, wished him a good night, and headed back to her parents’.

Once inside, River located her mother’s laptop and started surfing the web. The first thing she checked was Wikipedia. Shoddy on the sources, but it at least told her what happened to the town she destroyed. Strange disease followed by a massive fire, the explanation was given, and that relatively jived with the truth.

Because she had personally modified Amy’s computer, River had no problem connecting to her work server in a different century and going through accumulated email. She shot Professor Candy a brief message, dealt with the financials from the students’ aborted trip, and mulled over a couple of freelance offers. Oh and there was the Lux Corporation again, trying to entice her to unlock the mystery behind the Library planet that had been sealed away for more than a century. That _definitely_ sounded intriguing, but that also involved working with Strackman Lux, and River honestly couldn’t stand him. Besides, something felt off about the expedition. She tapped her finger on the table, and instead of deleting the email entirely this time, she filed it in her _Maybe_ folder.

She briefly considered just using her vortex manipulator to go home, but she enjoyed the comfortable stillness of Amy and Rory’s house. When she sought out her bedroom and changed into the pajamas she kept as to not overly shock her father, when she slipped between the sheets and caught the faintest whiff of the Doctor’s cologne on them, she felt safe and cherished. She closed her eyes and imagined he was in bed with her, babbling about everything and nothing while she coaxed his clothes off.

After five minutes, River flew back down to the laptop. She opened her email, dashed off a quick denial to the Lux Corporation, and deleted the email. Then she went back to bed.

——

River stayed for a week, and as each day passed, she and Brian grew more concerned.

“It’s not like them to gone this long without any word,” Brian said over lunch at the pub. “Can you check into it?”

“Of course,” River told him, and in truth, she already had been trying to ferret out the Doctor and her parents. Phone calls to their mobiles went unanswered, no matter how River tried to route them. She couldn’t even rouse their younger selves, and that was even more concerning.

She next tried to communicate with the TARDIS. The lack of contact from Amy and Rory unnerved her. But the inability to reach the TARDIS nearly made her panic. River tried every way she knew of to reach the old girl, but like with her parents, it was like she was sealed away. River used the scrap of psychic paper she kept tucked in the back of her diary to try to send a message to the Doctor, but it went unanswered. In a last attempt, River decided to use her vortex manipulator to teleport straight on board the TARDIS like she’d done in the past. But all she got for her efforts was being thrown back against the lounge wall, a line of impressive bruises up and down her ribs, and a raging headache.

Two days after that mishap, thankful for her ability to heal fast, River paced her parents’ lounge. There _was_ one avenue left. One thing she could do that she promised the Doctor she would never do unless they were in close proximity or in case of a dire emergency. It was a fail safe, something she knew would work where everything else had failed. But it carried its own risk.

Not long after the Doctor re-emerged in Amy and Rory’s life, Amy had insisted on a second wedding between him and River. He immediately agreed - not just because they had discovered a particular enjoyment for getting wed across time and space, but because he hadn’t fully finished their wartime ceremony. He had never told River his name, and in Amy and Rory’s back garden during the first family dinner that River so cherished, he had finally done so. But with the conclusion of the ceremony had come something else, a telepathic link between them. It was how he had shared his name, the only time _he_ could. She could speak it aloud, but he couldn’t. That knowledge had been given over to the Time Lords when he became one of them, only shared when initiating a life bond with a spouse.

But the bond was also dangerous. If River used it to connect with the Doctor at the wrong point in his timeline, it could cause dire consequences. So they barely used it at all, really only during sex. It was possible to use it at other times, but like keeping a detailed journal of her travels, it was one of the rules he’d given her.

River contemplated her diary, sitting on the table next to the open laptop where research filled the screen. It was probably nothing. The Doctor and her parents were off having fun, and she was fretting over nothing. But every instinct she had screamed that something was terribly, terribly wrong, and each night, she was plagued by nightmares of the Daleks in Austria, devouring that entire village.

Right. Well. _Brave heart, River._

She dashed off a message to Brian and pinned it to the fridge, and made sure her diary, guns, and vortex manipulator were all securely fashioned to her person. Then she sat on the sofa and focused on the picture of her, the Doctor, and her parents from that backyard wedding. She closed her eyes and started to drift, remembering what the Doctor had told her.

_“Just let your thoughts become detached, like a door opening. You can’t accidentally enter anyone else’s thoughts but mine. Call out to me until you can feel me. Make sure it’s the right one, or my second self will swallow his recorder. It should happen very fast, but if I’m far away, just keep focusing. You can always find me. I promise.”_

Her temples began to pound as her hands curled into fists. She forced herself to take deep, even breaths, even as her psychic self screamed to the universe for her husband to answer her _now_ , or she was going to slap him into his next regeneration. After she was done kissing and yelling at him for making her worry like that.

_River?_

She nearly sobbed with relief. It was faint and scratchy, like listening to a ham radio transmission, but it was him. The right him.

_Doctor!_

_River … my … aro … Dal … TARDIS. Shield. Tr… zalore._

_Doctor, where are you? I’m coming for you._

_… Aro … Trenz … Ska …_

Her hearts leapt into her throat.

_Ska … ro._

_Oh god, Doctor, are you on Skaro?_

_River, don’t … safe … aren … safe …_ The mental connection suddenly ripped way, and she doubled over, dry heaving until her head stopped spinning.

Like _hell_ she was going to remain safe. When she got her breath back, she slowly got to her feet and staggered to the table where she had left the laptop. She stayed there for a few precious minutes, torn between taking paracetamol to will away the raging headache the aborted transmission had given her or just dealing with it. She went for dealing with it, pulling out her diary to jot down what the Doctor had tried to tell her.

The Skaro part had come through. She guessed he was trying to tell her he was with her parents, but where else would they be? There was some sort of shield, and that shield kept the TARDIS from being moved. But that last phrase he had given her … that made her blood run cold.

River flipped back to the earliest pages of her diary, filled with the notes that she’d taken during graduate school. She paced, despite the headache and her pitching stomach, because she couldn’t keep still.

“On the fields of Trenzalore,” she read aloud, “at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, _ever_ be answered. Silence _must_ fall when the question is asked.”

It was the question and the Silence’s pursuit of the Doctor, of preventing him from asking that question, that had led to her kidnapping and brainwashing as a child. The Kovarian faction of the Church had tweaked her already-altered DNA and exploited the child of the Doctor’s closest friends. But despite all of that, they had chosen to love each other. She kept his secrets. He married her when he could have chosen otherwise, revealing the depth of his own feelings without directly saying the words. In the darkest moments when she doubted his feelings for her, it was that scrap of knowledge that kept her believing.

Despite everything, despite the centuries they had spent together, the question still hung over them. The Sword of Damocles that threatened to tear their lives apart. All of their lives.

Because River knew one secret that no one else did. They didn’t dare breathe it to Amy and Rory. And that knowledge in the wrong hands would be disastrous.

The Doctor was on his final regeneration.

——-

River worked late into the night, drank a pot of coffee, then worked more. She accessed everything she could about Skaro, shamelessly hacking into UNIT files and reading up more on it. She further upgraded Amy’s laptop and researched more. She generated a holographic model of Skaro and plotted the likely location of the Doctor and her parents, most likely on the Dalazar continent. The Time War had left the planet a ruin, but the Daleks had returned there.

But it didn’t make sense, River realized as dawn broke and she had taken a brief catnap. Skaro was relatively easy to reach. There was no shield surrounding Skaro itself, so the TARDIS would be easy to move. Not to mention her mobile, altered to used across time and space, would reach her parents’.

She drummed her fingers on the table. There were two people she could consult, but she didn’t want to drag either Jack Harkness nor Kate Stewart into this mess. But maybe … there was a third. She didn’t consult him often, but he was always a wealth of knowledge when she did see him.

A few hours later, River strode into the public area of the National Gallery, mingling among the tourists as she edged toward to a side door. Swiping a cloned ID, she slipped into a remote gallery. The Under-Gallery was a smaller version of the larger public area. It was just as brightly lit and well-maintained. The artifacts here were more rare, most of them of alien origin. River had contributed a few select items during her travels.

Ah, and there he was. White curly hair like a small cloud framed a cheerful, weathered face. He stood before one of the paintings, adjusting the frame and the lighting. He perked up as she approached, and he didn’t bother to turn around as she reached his side.

“Back again so soon, my dear?”

“It’s been an age, and you know it.” River kissed his cheek.

“I don’t suppose you’re here for scones. I’ve a particularly good batch I made last night. You should have one.” The man beamed at her. “What brings you here, professor? You should be off saving the universe, not humoring an old man.”

“Every so often, even we warriors like to stop and have tea.” River followed him into a snug galley kitchen, where he insisted she sit while he bustled about. He placed two sugar-dusted scones on a plate, poured tea from a fresh pot, and set them before her. Without asking, he placed a dollop of cream in her cup and nothing else. He added three sugars to his own tea and took the seat across from her.

“So, what brings you to see the Curator?” he asked.

River broke off a piece of scone and weighed how to ask her question. She had her suspicions regarding the Curator’s identity, even though common sense told her it couldn’t be possible. At first, before she knew the truth about his regenerations, River had thought he was a future incarnation of the Doctor. Then she reconsidered, especially after her Doctor had admitted that he had taken his age down some before that fateful trip to Logopolis when he had regenerated into his celery-wearing incarnation. There had been a period where he had traveled without the young boy Adric, before re-encountering Nyssa. She suspected this was the Doctor during that time. At least, that’s what she rationalized. Regardless … he would have the information she sought.

“I need to know if the Daleks have any defenses around Skaro that would prevent a spaceship of non-Dalek origin from going in or out,” she said.

The Curator went poker-faced, the warm smile disappearing. He chewed thoughtfully on his scone and studied River. He didn’t say anything for so long that she nearly gave it up as a lost cause. She’d contact Jack Harkness, and bless him, he’d want in on it. As close as they were, there were still some things she’d rather do alone and-

“Skaro doesn’t have any defenses like that,” the Curator said. “Neither does the Parliament of the Daleks, that great ship that holds their government.”

“Oh,” River replied, a bit deflated.

The Curator leaned forward, his worn face now concerned as he set his scone back on the plate. “But, have you ever heard of the Asylum?”

River sat up straighter, and everything suddenly clicked. _This_ was the information she sought. “What do you know of this place?”

“Not place. Planet. Never went there, if I was the one to travel to places like that. And neither should you go.”

“Oh, Curator.” River gave him her most winning smile. “Since when have I ever let anything like that stop me?”

The Curator chuckled, as if he knew her better than she knew herself, and River’s theories about him were scuttled once more. _Surely_ he couldn’t be a future … Before she could go too far down that rabbit hole, he poured out more tea for them both.

“I know you, dear,” he said in the same tone that had come from her husband in the moments he was most indulgent. “Besides, everything must have a beginning. And this moment, this little chat, is ours.” He saluted River with his teacup. “Now, let me tell you about the Asylum of the Daleks.”


	2. Chapter 2

River stood in her parents’ lounge, once again dressed for travel. Her hair was tied back and she had quite the small armory strapped to her person, all disguised with various perception filters and bio-dampeners. She had all but worn out her mother’s laptop and vowed to buy her a new one. Or better yet, just bring her one back from a later century.

On the table next to the computer, a hologram map of the planet called the Asylum spun lazily, sparks bouncing off the virtual shield covering the planet.

The Asylum was where the Daleks had discarded the unwanted among them: the insane, the battle-scarred, the malfunctioned. A force field and a nanocloud surrounded the planet, keeping most everything out and converted what had gotten through into the same Dalek puppets that River had fought in Austria.

A spaceship, _The Alaska_ , had disappeared near the planet at one point. Popular speculation was that it had crashed into the planet. If so, River reasoned, there would be a breach in the force field. She had leaped through different time periods, charting the planet quietly until she was able to confirm the rumors. She narrowed down when and where the breach formed, had headed back to her parents’ to finish readying for the trip.

River’s goal was to land on the Asylum about a year after the crash of the _Alaska_. She would use the same breach to get her parents and the Doctor out. As for the TARDIS, hopefully the Doctor would know where it was and how to reach it, but one problem at a time.

She stared at the map for a long time, etching every detail into her memory. Then she fished a chain from beneath her blouse. The thin, worn wedding band had an alternating marquis and floral pattern of white gold nestled between two strips of thin yellow gold. It sparkled as she removed it from the chain and slid it over her fourth finger. She flexed her fingers, admiring it front and back. She had received it during that backyard wedding her parents had insisted on, with rings that had once belonged to Rory’s grandparents. Circumstances meant she hardly wore it. But for some reason, she _needed_ to wear the ring this time. Call it sentiment, call it good luck, but it felt right wearing it.

River ran her thumb over her ring, stared at the photo of her with her parents and the Doctor on the mantel, then pressed the button on her vortex manipulator.

——-

She landed a little less than graciously, but fortunately no one was around to see River stumble out of the vortex and onto her knees. Snow and wind whipped her curls into her face, and it took a few moments of frantic batting before River could see well enough to make out a ladder a few feet away. Most of the Dalek structures were underground, and considering the Daleks didn’t really need ladders for obvious reasons, it had to be one left by the _Alaska_ crew. She crawled to the ladder, tested the strength, then squinted into the darkness. She pulled her torch out and shined it into the tunnel. Somewhere deep below, the light bounced off the floor. A good 20 feet or so, she estimated, and began her descent.

She stepped off the final rung and swung her torch to-and-fro, revealing some sort of tunnel. Despite her worry, she felt the normal twinges of excitement that came from exploring the forbidden. Tucking the torch beneath her arm, River took out her scanner and set it to scan for humanoid life. She waited for the scan to complete and focused on the construction of the facility she was in, or at least what she could see. For as much as they destroyed, the Daleks were actually quite skilled in construction - or making others do the construction work for them.

Her scanner beeped, and four red dots appeared on the map that River had pre-loaded. One was for herself. There were two dots clustered on the far side of her map. A third dot was somewhat in-between them and was moving around. The moving one had to be the Doctor, she reasoned, and the clustered dots her parents. While Rory and Amy often split off on their own missions with the Doctor, she highly doubted that her father would let her mother wander among insane Daleks alone. Especially once he figured out what they were. Amy had had the terrible luck to be around Daleks before andescaped with her life, but as far as she knew, this would be Rory’s first go with the pepper pots of doom. River charted a route toward the wandering figure, then set off in the direction her scanner suggested. Luckily, it worked far better than the average GPS.

Based on her research, most of the Daleks should be deactivated. Should being the key word, and River had no illusions about how her sweetie’s meddling could change things at a whim. The long tunnel curved, then opened into a larger hall. Carefully, she swept the torch inside and over the rusted cages that stood rows marching down a room easily the size of a football pitch. Inside the cages were Daleks of various colors, each in a state decay or disrepair. One gun stalk twitched and sparkled, but beyond that, the room was eerily silent. River glanced at her scanner. The readout on the top of the display said “Intensive Care.”In other words, the sickest of the sick Daleks.

River walked up to one of the cages and studied the Dalek within. During her thesis research, River had studied all of the Doctor’s encounters with the Daleks and the different evolutions the Daleks themselves had undergone. She’d won a prize with the resulting research paper on the Daleks alone. This one, she figured, had to be from the Doctor’s second regeneration. It was beautiful in a terrible, twisted sort of way, and her gut told her that the sooner she was out of this room, the better.

The door on the other end of the hall whooshed open, and River’s hand immediately dropped to the butt of her gun. Her mind suddenly sparked with awareness, as if coming in range of a strong radio signal. Then she saw him, her husband of tweed, rangy limbs, and floppy hair stepping through the door and talking into what looked to be a cobbled-together handset. Everything inside her relaxed despite the still present danger.

The Doctor held the handset in one hand and gesticulated with the other, giving the caged Daleks the beady eye. She smiled fondly as he poked a wary finger into the cage, not quite jabbing the Dalek inside before moving on. “I’m nearly to the hub of the path web,” he said into the handset. “Once I take it down, we’ll have to move fast.”

“Hey,” Amy’s crackling, yet annoyed voice came through the handset. “You _know_ this is a trap. We’ve managed this long. Surely …”

“I won’t put anyone else in danger,” the Doctor hissed. “I can manage without food and water. You two can’t. I’ll grab the components needed from the hub and rig up a teleport strong enough to at least get us off the planet. I should be able to do it before the Daleks shoot us to smithereens. From there, we can figure out how to get back to the TARDIS. As soon as we get somewhere safe, I’ll contact-”He drew up short as he spotted her across the room, nearly tripping over his feet. He gaped. She waggled her fingers at him. “River?”

“Figure out a way to contact her _now_ ,” Amy ordered.

He didn’t respond. He thumbed the handset off and carefully brushed his hair back. River very nearly rolled her eyes as he spun to look in the reflective surface of one of the cages and straightened the lapels of his jacket before strutting between the cages toward her. Now, she did roll her eyes, but she smiled. A younger her had once wondered if it was some sort of bizarre Time Lord mating dance, but really it was just this particular incarnation of her sweetie. The incarnation that married her atop a pyramid in all of time and space, and the one that was giving her a half-besotted, half-relieved look as he reached her side.

He rolled back on his heels, grinning from ear to ear. “What brings you to the Asylum, Dr. Song?”

She ached to hold him, but instead she consulted her scanner. “It’s Professor now, and I heard some interesting tall tales about how a man in a bowtie was wandering around lost down here. Did you seriously just hang up on my mother, sweetie?“

A pained look briefly flashed in his eyes. “I um … Yes.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes right now,” River said. She could already hear Amy’s ear-blistering lecture.

“I suddenly don’t want to be in my shoes either,” he admitted, and they shared a smile. He glanced nervously at the inert Daleks before pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“The Daleks aren’t exactly watching right now,” she pointed out, but her hearts still tripped over the sweet gesture.

“You never know,” the Doctor muttered. “And don’t say my name. We already found out the hard way what happens when you do.”

Well, that wasn’t a comforting thought at all. Despite that, River nodded, and the Doctor turned the handset back on. Before Amy could begin to yell, the Doctor quickly spoke. “Pond, say hello to our rescue team!” he said cheerfully, then all but shoved the device in River’s face.

She took it, rolled her eyes at him, and clasped his hand. “Hello, Mum.”

River wasn’t quite sure if Amy’s shriek was actually reverberating through the hall or if it was the way it came across the handset. “River! Oh my God. Rory! Rory, it’s River!”

“I told you so.” Rory’s voice, even fainter and scratcher than Amy’s, came through as well. “I told you she’d find us.”

“I knew that, stupid face,” Amy retorted. “She’d tear apart the universe to find us, my kid.”

It was a sobering thought, but also very much the truth. River squeezed the Doctor’s hand. She had her husband and she had her parents. The universe could simply go hang if it meant choosing between it or her little family. It was a sentiment she kept to herself. She absently listened to the sound of her bickering parents as the Doctor tugged her away from the caged Daleks and toward a large hub, ringed with overly large keyboards and wires sticking out everywhere.

“Did you use your vortex manipulator?” the Doctor asked as they stood before what River imagined was the path web.Panels of computer chips, switches, and large keys that could easily be manipulated by the Daleks lined the walls. It was the Dalek’s data hub, where they stored all knowledge about their allies and enemies. She figured quite a few terabytes was dedicated to the Doctor alone.

She nodded. “I should be able to get all of us out of here, but the ride won’t be pleasant. What were you going to do?”

“Hack into the path web and take it down, steal a few components. In the ensuing chaos, teleport me and your parents back to the TARDIS once I hack everything together.” The Doctor took the handset back from River and turned it off. “I’m not sure it would have worked,” he admitted once there was no risk that Amy and Rory could overhear. “But I had to try.”

“What happened?” River asked.

The Doctor paced the small room, clearly agitated. “We’re on the last of the rations from _The Alaska_. There’s no potable water on this planet. The snow’s too radioactive for humans. It’s my fault your parents were dragged here, River.”

“Sweetie, you know Amy and Rory. Amy probably gleefully came along while Rory followed. You know we’re always here for you.”

He pushed a hand through his hair, then gave her an admiring look as he stopped before the center panel. This one had the most switches and something akin to a human-style keyboard. “They tried to capture you too, you know. They got me and your parents, but lets just say the Daleks were a little mad you got away.” She joined him at the center panel, and he grinned with no small amount of pride at her. “They stranded us here, among the maddest of the Daleks. We would either die of thirst, starvation, or from one of those Daleks.”

“But why did they want us?” River asked. “Why not kill you straight away?”

The Doctor huffed a bit. “After all these years, dear, the Daleks found it too easy just to let me off with a simple extermination. They wanted me to see your parents, then you die. They wanted me to suffer for making them suffer during the Time War by taking away my family. They tried that sort of trick on me before, during my tenth incarnation.”

“When the planets were stolen.”

He nodded. “After two weeks, I felt you in my mind. That was dangerous, River Song.”

“I had to try,” River shot back at him. “There was something wrong. I could feel it.”

He sighed, then smiled. He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed tightly. “That’s how I knew you would come for us. Your parents weren’t the only one hoping you’d appear.”

His unshakeable loyalty was staggering. No matter the age of the Doctor she encountered, no matter how suspicious he was of her, he always had that well of immense faith in her abilities. So she tugged on his hand until he gave her a questioning look, and she pulled him to her for a proper kiss. He sighed into her mouth, cradling her face gently as she ran her hands up and down his back. She tried to put everything she didn’t dare vocalize into that kiss: the weeks of fear, worry, and the great deal of stress. He pushed her into the panel, miraculously avoiding any of the keys and switches. She felt his answering need and a glimmer of his own desperation, as they stood among the Daleks and kissed as if the universe was ending.

Hands shaking just a bit, he pressed his lips to her forehead one more time and turned back to the path web. “If we take this down,” he said, “the Daleks will automatically set the defenses to implode, incinerating the entire planet. With you here now, we can leave this as is. But since _The Alaska_ crashed, the breach in the force field has caused parts of the planet to reanimate. Eventually, it’ll reach these Daleks.”

“Mad Daleks on the lam. Dangerous for them, but possibly catastrophic for the universe,” River mused. “It could one day bite us in the arse. You know we have to destroy the planet, sweetie.”

He sighed, playing with one of the switches without fully flicking it. “I know …”

“They’re _Daleks_ ,” River hissed.

“I still have a conscience, River,” the Doctor shot at her.

She stiffened, her hands curling into fists. “And you think I don’t?” she shot back. “These creatures will gleefully destroy half the universe and not even sweat about it. They did so during the Time War, you and I both know that. Besides, you know the Daleks will eventually do it themselves if we won’t. That was probably their plan all along.”

“Most likely,” he admitted. “They would widen the breach and destroy the planet, especially once they realize that we survived against all the odds. They’re not risking letting me loose again.”

“Then we’re doing _them_ a kindness.” River brushed the Doctor aside so she could study the panel. “Come on, sweetie. I haven’t hacked into a database in two whole hours. I’m going through withdrawal.”

The Doctor snorted and moved to one of the other panels. One of them, she quickly realized, wouldn’t have been able to hack into the path web. But the two of them together was like weaving an elaborate symphony. It took them several hours of coding, rewiring, an almost intricate dance similar to when they worked on the TARDIS together. They barely spoke but moved nearly in tandem, River passing over tools from her belt pouch as need, the Doctor sharing his sonic.

When they cracked it, River felt a sudden wave of cold wash over her as in the Intensive Care area, the caged Daleks stirred to life. “Sweetie?”

“Run!” The Doctor grabbed River’s hand and tore through the door River had seen him walk through earlier. They raced through the tunnels of the Asylum, the Daleks intoning the Doctor’s name behind then. The chilling, robotic voices echoed off the walls and the answering bombardment from the Dalek ships shook the planet.

They reached a room with a small platform, where Amy and Rory huddled together. They yelled and reached for River, but the Doctor waved them off. “No time,” he gasped. “River, give me your vortex manipulator!”

She yanked it off and passed it over, and the Doctor strapped it on. Muttering under his breath about inferior technology, he hastily programmed it, then aimed the sonic at it. “Grab on, Ponds!” he yelled. “Hurry!”

River grabbed one of his arms and Amy and Rory the other. As the room they stood in began to fall apart, the Doctor activated the vortex manipulator, and they disappeared.

——-

They reappeared in the TARDIS console room, stumbling as they gained their footing. Amy and Rory whooped as the Doctor straightened his bow tie. “I happen to be very handy with a teleport,” he preened and strutted to the door to inform the Daleks of just that.

River rolled her eyes, shaking her head fondly as she made her way to the console. “Shall I get us out of here, honey?”

The Doctor, who had his entire upper body hanging out the door, waved her away for a moment. After a stray laser shot soared over his head, he immediately ducked back inside and slammed the door. “I’m ready to escape this hellhole if you are.”

River took them into the vortex while Amy and Rory simply clung to each other. “I never thought I would see this again,” Amy admitted, then turned her attention to River. She broke away from Rory to fling her arms around River. “Smartest kid I ever gave birth to.”

“Only kid you’ve ever given birth to,” River teased, and Amy sobered. She cast a wary glance back at Rory before squeezing River once more.

Rory managed a wan smile and patted River’s shoulder. “I knew you’d come,” he said with the simple faith he’d always had.

“So did I,” the Doctor said, bounding down the stairs and spreading his arms. “Look at her, the best of you both, Ponds.”

“Well now,” River said lightly, “all this praise could go to a girl’s head. Regardless, if you didn’t want me to infiltrate a planet, you should learn to answer your mobile.”

The Doctor scoffed while Amy and Rory laughed. Amy smelled her wrist and yelped, flinging her arm away. “I _reek_. We all reek. I’m going for a shower, then food that wasn’t from a ration kit.” She beckoned to Rory. “Husband, with me.”

“As she commands,” Rory said, pointing at Amy. He winked at River and followed his wife up the stairs.

“Wait,” River called out, causing them both to halt on the third step. “Tell me something — why did all this happen to begin with? Why did the Daleks go after the two of you? The Doctor I get, and they’re no fans of me either, but you two? Did they ever say?”

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory all exchanged a sobering look. Then they directed that same look at River. The greasy knot of dread, which had finally gone away the moment she laid eyes on the Doctor in the Asylum, came back with a vengeance. Something was wrong. Something was still terribly, terribly wrong, and River knew that the answer to her question would upend all of their lives.

“Go on, Ponds,” the Doctor said quietly. “I’ll tell her.”

“Doctor-”

“It’s all right, Amelia.” The Doctor ascended the stairs until he was eye level with Amy. He kissed her forehead and squeezed her shoulders. “There’s some things that should come from a spouse, you know?”

Amy gave him a watery smile. “Well, look at that. You’re figuring out how to be a good husband.” She kissed the Doctor’s cheek and patted his bow tie before giving River a sad smile that seemed she was two seconds away from running back down the stairs and shielding her daughter from whatever the Doctor was going to tell her. Instead, she drew in a steadying breath and allowed Rory to lead her upstairs.

When they had disappeared, the Doctor followed, pulling off his jacket. “I could use a shower too,” he said, and that was all the invitation that River needed. She quickly made sure that they were safe in the vortex and ran up the stairs.

The TARDIS had shuffled the rooms around, and their bedroom was only a short walk away. She closed the door after her as the Doctor sniffed at his jacket and sighed. “Ruined,” he said mournfully and tossed the jacket in a laundry basket that would either send the clothes off to be cleaned or incinerate them if necessary. He made short work of the rest of his clothes until he stood nude before River - a site that normally brought her a great deal of pleasure. Instead, she leaned against the door and watched as he muttered under his breath. He discarded everything except his bow tie. That he rolled gently and placed on the dresser before heading into the bathroom. River pushed off the door and lingered just long enough to recognize the bow tie as the one from their wedding atop the pyramid, the first one they had done. She traced a finger over it, then over the wedding band she wore, and followed him into the bathroom.

The Doctor already stood in the shower, eyes closed as he tilted his head toward the spray. River made short work of her own clothes and stepped in with him, picking up a loofah as she did so. “Stay still,” she said and pour some soap on it. She lathered up his back, following it up with a gentle scratching with her nails that made him groan with pleasure. She hummed beneath her breath, doing her absolute best not to give into the growing panic. She forced herself into the moment, into this stolen bit of time as water sprayed their skin and steam rose up around them. When he turned, when he initiated the kiss, she let herself be surprised by the unexpected boldness instead of acknowledging it as the delaying tactic it was. The loofah dropped to the tiled floor as she stood on her toes, kissing him back with even more fierceness than their stolen moment among the Daleks had been.

He pressed her into the wall, lips trailing down her throat as she tried to hook a leg around him, to bring him so close that nearly every part of their body touched. She didn’t want just a quickie against the shower wall. Not that she didn’t enjoy those, she loved them fiercely. But something in her mind said to savor this, to savor _him_ , slowly. She needed to commit every detail to memory of what it was like to be touched by him, of how he shivered when she paid detailed attention to various parts of his body. She needed to etch the sound of his moans into the dark recesses of her mind. But when his mouth closed over one breast, she knew it was hopeless. All good sense, all impending doom fled as she moved her hips against him. She was greedy now, and he chuckled as he met her increasingly urgent demands. When his mouth was on hers again, she decided everything else in the universe could wait.

The water was cold when they stumbled out together, moving on shaky legs back into the bedroom. It took all of her remaining energy to simply pull on a dressing gown and collapse on the bed. River had always loved the ceiling in their room, constellations and stars glittering in orbit. It was like staring into a deep, never-ending sky, and it brought her peace. She wanted to just drift to sleep, the first real rest she’d had since the Dalek attack in Austria. With bleary eyes, she watched the Doctor pull on pants and debate between night clothes and his normal clothes. He settled on pajama pants and bypassed a shirt, swinging on his dressing gown and joining her on the bed. She scooted in close, lacing his fingers with hers. They weren’t huge cuddlers in bed, but this was just as nice. He gave her a tired smile.

“When did you last sleep?” she asked softly.

“Oh, probably a week or two before the Asylum.” He punctuated this with a yawn. “Could use a couple hours or two.” He squeezed her hand. “It’ll keep, River.”

That worried her, but she was already drifting to sleep.

——

“Has he told you?” Amy asked quietly as Rory stood at the stove, efficiently making enough blueberry pancakes to feed a classroom of teenage boys. Or two people who’d been surviving on space rations for more than a month and their daughter who had barely eaten during the same amount of time. “Or did he distract you?”

“What do you think?” River asked as she poured a thin stream of syrup over the stack Rory set before her.

Amy grunted and stabbed at her sausage as if it had personally offended her. “No, because he probably figured out a way to evade it.”

He had, River silently acknowledged, that one time in the shower and twice more once they woke up. Not that Amy needed to know that. Granted, given the thunderous expression and the way she was methodically destroying that innocent sausage with her fork, her mother had figured out how the Doctor was avoiding the necessary discussion.

“Good morning, Ponds!” Him indoors sang as if he was magically invoked by their discussion. The Doctor swooped into the kitchen, relieving Rory of the plate he’d just fixed for himself and wedging his way into the spot between Amy and River. Rory rolled his eyes and turned back to fix himself yet another plate.

The Doctor tore into the pancakes as if consuming them was his sole reason for existing. This was only after he doused them with enough syrup to make Amy wrinkle her nose and River idly wonder about his blood sugar. They shared a fond exasperated look as Rory took the remaining chair and finally got to enjoy his breakfast.

When they finished and the dishes stacked for the TARDIS to take care of, Rory prepared them all tea and they carried the mugs into the console room. Amy perched on the captain’s chair, and Rory squeezed in next to her while the Doctor absently fiddled with various levers and switches before consulting the monitor. River leaned against a railing and sipped at her tea, wondering which of them would break first.

The Doctor pulled the monitor down, and River saw a picture of her mother’s childhood home on it. “We never did diaries,” he commented. “Have you done the Pandorica? The _Byzantium_?”

“Yes,” she said. “That was the last time I saw you. A very young you. Then I went and visited Amy after our wedding and let them in on your so-called death.”

“Ah, I was wondering when you let the cat out of the bag.” He arched an eyebrow at her and she shrugged, not regretting it at all. She had kept his secret, but of course she was going to tell her parents. She lied all the time, but there was only so long she’d lie to them about _that_.

“So, you know about the crack in her bedroom wall,” the Doctor continued, “and the other cracks that happened.”

“Yes, caused when the Silence blew up the TARDIS,” River remembered. “But we sealed it when you used the Pandorica to reboot the universe to before the TARDIS exploded.”

“We _assume_ the Silence blew up the TARDIS,” the Doctor pointed out, and he sighed. He leaned against the console, absently flicking a switch that River believed caused the golf course in deck 6 to turn into a jungle. “I never thought it was over, River. There’s been signs pointing to it. I saw once … well, it doesn’t matter. There’s still a crack left, and that’s why the Daleks went after all of us. They know about it, and they trapped me on the Asylum until I agreed to face it. When I refused, they took your parents and tried to take you, to force me to go.”

“Where is it? Where’s the crack?” River asked, her voice suddenly hoarse. But deep down, she already knew what he was going to say.

“Trenzalore.”


End file.
